Ky., Ind. among states with petitions to secede

Petitions are not legal

According to the White House, more than 7,000 people have signed petitions for Indiana and Kentucky to secede from the union.

In total, there are 20 states with similar petitions, all of them filed within the last two days.

The petitions all came from individuals and not state governments.

Withdrawing from the union is not legal.

They all read the same way, "We petition the Obama administration to peacefully grant (the state) to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government."

The petitions also cite Declaration of Independence.

The petitions require 25,000 signatures each, by Dec. 10. If they reach the threshold of 25,000, they’ll receive a response from the president.

None of the petitions is nearing the 25,000 mark and most of the people who signed the petitions aren’t even from the states they’re signing for.

The Declaration of Independence carries no legal authority and the United State Supreme Court ruled in the late 1800s, after the Civil War, that once a state voluntarily enters the union, it cannot pick and choose when it wants to leave.

All of the filed petitions came from individuals, not state governments.

A political science professor at the University of Louisville said petitions like these are not uncommon.

Several of them popped up after the 2000 election and again after the 2008 election.

To see a complete list of the petitions and the names of the people who've signed them, click here.

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